Encourager Editorial: What do we need to know about living our lives for Jesus? Jesus wants us NOT JUST to love him, but to act as people of love in the wider community inspired by his example.
In the Gospel of John chapter 15, Jesus tells us in verse 12: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you; and emphasizes this in verse 17: I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another. To follow this command, we need to understand how Jesus loves us – so we can love each other in the same way.
The passage also says this: 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. I invite you to think about the cross for a moment and ask yourself if it is an image of love or one of commandment? Personally, I think it’s an image of both. By dying on the cross, Jesus showed his love for us – but the sacrifice that it represents is also the way that Jesus commands us to live for each other. We must love sacrificially and wholeheartedly – ready to give anything up for each other. After all, Jesus referred to following him as “taking up our cross”.
We are a people that place a high value on the right to choose. We make all sorts of choices – big and small – in the course of our everyday lives. How good does it feel to know that Jesus chose us? Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that we are responsible for our faith – that it is there to be chosen or not. This simply is not true. It is Christ who has called us. He draws us to himself, and is unwilling to let us go. Thus, the only choice is whether we want to follow his command to love, learning bit by bit what it means to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. We need to choose love each day in all we say and do.
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